Marek Leščák

Photophobia

On a cold February morning, 12-year-old Niki and his family arrive at the Kharkiv metro station to take shelter from the terrifying war raging outside. For Niki's family, daylight is synonymous with mortal danger, and the boy is not allowed to leave the station premises, living under the constant glow of their neon lights. While aimlessly wandering around the abandoned cars and full platforms, Niki meets Vika (11), and a new world opens up to him. As their bond strengthens, the children find the courage once again to feel the sun on their faces.

The Third End of the Stick

Otherness in otherness. What does it mean to be different in a community that is itself excluded from society? The documentary follows the fate of Roma who have become a minority in a minority society. Roma gays and transvestite search for their living space and dream of working abroad. A legless father of five longs for a wheelchair. A Roma grandmother sacrifices her life for the health of her beloved grandson. Will Emil, a Roma man who has found faith in God, be able to save his son from alcohol? Four stories from the poorest Roma settlements in Slovakia aim to break down prejudices between the Roma community and the white majority.

Power

A boy is accidentally killed at an informal hunt somewhere on the border of two European countries. One of the people involved is Minister Berger, the hot candidate for the influential post of High Commissioner for Water Management, who will be tasked with finding the solution to increasing water shortages across Europe. The government hires secret agent Steiner to hush up the scandal. The more he investigates the case, the more embroiled he becomes in dilemmas of power and its execution.

The Shift

A babysitter, a bunch of laborers, and a long-haul truck driver. All were born in Slovakia, but after the country joined the EU, they took the opportunity to work elsewhere in the Schengen zone. During week-long work shifts in Austria, Germany, or on European motorways, they try to get used to their foreign environments while struggling to maintain contact with their children and partners. For their future, they left for better-paying jobs. Now they are losing them by their absence. They don't know what awaits them when they return home. A trio of saddening stories compose a laconic portrait of a globalised labour market that allows people to fulfil their dreams, but often at great sacrifice.

The Shift

A babysitter, a bunch of laborers, and a long-haul truck driver. All were born in Slovakia, but after the country joined the EU, they took the opportunity to work elsewhere in the Schengen zone. During week-long work shifts in Austria, Germany, or on European motorways, they try to get used to their foreign environments while struggling to maintain contact with their children and partners. For their future, they left for better-paying jobs. Now they are losing them by their absence. They don't know what awaits them when they return home. A trio of saddening stories compose a laconic portrait of a globalised labour market that allows people to fulfil their dreams, but often at great sacrifice.

Horse

The shouted teacher Dušička is not having the best time of his life. He is going through a crisis with his girlfriend who wants to own him. He has problems at school, forcing him to change the way he teaches. He worries about his neighbors, who impose middle-class principles on him. And to top it all off, he finds a live horse at his home for Christmas. The situation is all the more absurd because he lives in an apartment on the second floor of an apartment building. Dušička has no idea how the white man got to him, who he might be, and he has no idea how to get rid of him. But the presence of the circus clown becomes not only a source of bizarrely comical situations, but also a catalyst for his relationships. Dušička recognizes the true face of the people who surround him. Because in a heated situation, everyone loses their masks. He begins to understand that his environment forces him to make compromises that are against him.

The Man with Hare Ears

Josef is a writer aged sixty, who thinks that nothing can surprise him any more. One evening, though, his phone rings and he finds himself caught up in a series of events that turn his world upside-down. His best friend – also a writer – tries to commit suicide; his young girlfriend Katka tells him she’s pregnant; and the man with hare ears – his alter ego from one of his stories – appears to him in everyday situations.

Servants

Michal and Juraj, two students of a theological seminary in totalitarian Czechoslovakia, must decide if they'll choose the easier way of collaboration, or if they'll subject themselves to the surveillance of the secret police.

The Interpreter

80-year-old Ali Ungar comes across a book by a former SS officer describing his wartime activities in Slovakia. He realises his parents were executed by him. He sets out to take revenge but finds instead his 70-year-old son, Georg, a retired teacher. Georg, who had avoided his father all his life, decides to find out more about him and offers Ali to be his interpreter.

Nina

A 12 year old swimming star becomes the emotional casualty of her parents acrimonious separation, in this powerful coming of age story about youth rebelliously standing up to the cruelties and immaturities of adulthood.

Little Harbour

A story of children who feel safer in the streets than at home, about children seeking out sturdy lifeboats that cross between the world of fantasy and the harsh reality of life. Jarka is one of these children. Ten years-old, and living with a mother who is not yet ready to be a mom, Jarka spends most of her time alone. Pushed by her desire for love and to form a fully functional family, she finds herself substituting a "mother" to two babies.

Goat

Peter "Koza" Baláz is a former Olympic boxer. He and his partner, Misa, live in a dilapidated housing estate, constantly struggling to make ends meet. Misa learns that she is expecting a child and decides to terminate her pregnancy. In order to earn some much-needed cash and possibly change Misa's mind. He and his manager Zvonko embark on a "tour", where success is not measured in victories, but in the amount of blows that Koza can take.

Children

Virtually without exception, a relation between parents and children is something that affects us throughout our lives. The first fiction film by award-winning documentarist Jaro Vojtek is an omnibus film about complicated relationships between parents and their children in which characters are challenged with long-term separation or declining health. Four stories titled Son, Marathon, Canary and Father tell four different tales that form a single view on the troubled relationship between parents and children. Each story takes place in a different season and together they create a multi-layered mosaic of relations reflecting hopes, disappointments and inevitable decisions. With a documentary filmmaker’s precision, Vojtek observes the characters and their behaviour, presenting an authentic picture of damaged family relations.

Miracle

Ela, 15, has a love affair, which results in her being sent to a re-education center.

Made in Ash

A grittily realistic tale of prostitution at an Eastern European border town

Made in Ash

A grittily realistic tale of prostitution at an Eastern European border town

Gypsy

For 14-year-old Adam, the world of his poor Romany village has only two joys: boxing and Julka, a friend his same age. But after the violent death of his father, the boy experiences life’s harsher side: his mother remarries and his stepfather demands obedience without seeking to deserve Adam’s respect. Gradually everything the boy was attached to starts to fall apart around him, and if his dead father hadn’t visited him he wouldn’t even know which path to take. The inexperience of youth, loneliness, and impulsiveness prevent him from using reason and cool consideration to face the obstacles in his way, and he even sometimes provokes those who stand by him. And thus he finds himself in a situation for which there is only one solution.

Blind Loves

A poetic story about love and happiness between doc and fiction.

Visions of Europe

Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.

Prague Stories

A four-story omnibus depicting different Czech slices-of-life from the titular city.

Orbis Pictus

In Slovakia, the sixteen year-old Terezka is discharged from her school with a letter to her mother. Along her surrealistic journey to find her mother, Terezka entwines reality and fantasy and meets a man that is hired to burn clothes; a woman buried on the ground; a young bride that is marrying the forty and something year-old widow of his brother to support her family as a tradition in their village; her younger brother that is intern in a special school; a decadent TV comedian and his wife; a powerful mobster in the kitchen of a restaurant; one lover of her mother in her former address; and finally her promiscuous mother that advises her to travel through the world.